Obamamania!

barack obama 5, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

As posted all over my Flickr stream and on Austinist, Barack Obama spoke last weekend at the Texas Book Festival to a crowd that packed the state Capitol's House of Reps chamber. The sense of excitement in the room was palpable, hundreds of people lined up for hours early for the chance to get their copy of The Audacity of Hope signed, and I see no reason to doubt that Obama will take a shot at the presidency in '08.

My impression: Even though he was obviously tired from his travels, he projected an air of calm confidence without arrogance that is both seemingly genuine and extremely magnetic. But he is no revolutionary. He is an anti-demagogue. And given people's growing dissatisfaction with today's political climate, he may be perfectly primed to ascend. As a guy sitting next to me said, "When he's in the room, you just get a sense of this big soul." The grandness of the term, applied to a man who's political persona revolves around modesty, reinforced that Obama has done something very smart, with this book and his political career. He has somehow come to represent hope.

There were, of course, many other good writers there, too. I'll try to get something up on the other panels I saw. Then again, listening to how both the flooding of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 could have been prevented are decidely less fun to write about.